


no one left

by holmesfreak1412



Series: Hope and Vengeance [2]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV), Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: Alternate Universe - Hunger Games Setting, Angst, F/F, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-06
Updated: 2019-07-06
Packaged: 2020-06-23 11:16:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,739
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19700257
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/holmesfreak1412/pseuds/holmesfreak1412
Summary: The listless eyes and questionable vices were all things shared by most mentors. Not Margaery though. She was different. Her kindness to Sansa had been unfailing and she was a survivor through and through.But victors are always hung up with something or another. It is then, just as fitting, that they are hung up on each other.





	no one left

**Author's Note:**

> I decided to make it more of a short story series that details their lives all throughout the Games and the Rebellion. I hope I can give it justice.

**_no one left_ **

It was not Sansa’s first mentorship gig but it was the first one that she took with a relatively clear head. Lyanna Mormont was as different to her as anyone could see. If anything, she was more like Arya than Sansa, with the way the girl’s lip curled with determination and veiled anger. Where Sansa had been naively excited despite herself when she first stepped on the trains, Jorah’s twelve-year old niece had been guardedly realistic.

“I’m no beauty. I’m not some pretty thing some lord can show off.” The distaste in her tone made Sansa much warier of the once-over the dark-haired girl was giving her. She saw her own image mirrored in the young girl’s eyes. Sansa looked and spoke like a woman of the Capital now and Northerners were not the most trusting of people. She no longer looks like one now. “I am going to win the games with none of that.”

_I am not going to be like you,_ is unsaid but Sansa hears it anyway.

Arya had been just as adamant, in those old days that her younger sister had tried her might to coax Sansa out her room after the Games. She was dead now, with only the burnt husk of their family home remaining. Sansa’s house in the Victor’s Village no longer held court to the ghosts of the family members she failed and her lifelong atonement fell on dead ears.

“You wouldn’t.” were her chosen words, as her eyes flitted away from the determined look on Lyanna’s face. Sansa’s mouth was a practiced curved line that her time of being the Capitol’s whore had long since perfected. “No one does.”

….

She had been an unwilling participant during the past two Games after her own. Lyanna Mormont could go ahead and throw one snide remark after another but Sansa was determined for the North to win this year. She had enough deaths, she decided, even when her own would promise a welcome respite from being a victor of this cursed Games. Winter is coming. She had seen children younger than Rickon be whipped for scraping the barrel. Her people would need this victory more than any other kingdom.

“It’s weird.” She whispered in Margaery’s neck, breathing in the rosy scent from the other girl’s flushed skin. She felt fingers drawing circles on her hair and knew that Margaery was awake. They had come to this habit during their trysts, talking about things that might have been treason to postpone the inevitable dread of the morrow. “I do not even know why I wanted to do this. There is no one left that I love.”

The words hung heavily on the air as Margaery’s hand move towards Sansa’s wrist. Her gentle touches hover around the shallow cuts, tracing the scars that marred the pale skin. Margaery brought the hand to her lips and responded. “Survival is often a wish we do not understand.”

“I wouldn’t mind dying.” She said needlessly, knowing that the cuts on her wrists were more than proof of the sentiment. Margaery only replied by tugging her closer, wrapping her arms around Sansa’s frame. Her chin jutted uncomfortably on the top of Sansa’s head when she said:

“I would mind that very much, sweet girl.”

They would part ways in the mornings as they usually would, wishing luck on both their escapades. Margaery’s lopsided smile was what she would think of whenever she would see the leery grins of her clients and when she tried to smile her way out of the unspeakable things they usually have in mind. Each night in King’s Landing, Sansa held the tears at bay. Each night, she would come into Margaery’s arms and smell roses. It did not smell quite like home.

Outside of the arena, the game had never stopped and Margaery played it well through the sway of her hips and suggestive smirks. She acted every bit like the Capital woman Sansa knew the other victors detested. But it was all a farce to survive and it was a wish that Margaery understood well. The Tyrells were alive and the Starks were not. Despite their differences, Sansa found that she could never resent Margaery for still having what Sansa once took for granted.

Survival was never the priority for Sansa like it was for Margaery. There was no one left worth living for. But in a way, living became the vengeance she sought for even as the smile that she painted on her face hurt more than any tears could.

Her mother would have wanted her to live on. Sansa does not want to disappoint the late Catelyn any more than she could. 

Sansa Stark, victor of the 305th Hunger Games, darling of the Capital.

…

The Reach had a fair amount of victors, two having worn the crown during Margaery’s tenure as a mentor. The North’s roster was as empty as most of its lands and Sansa wondered how Jorah had maintained sobriety in all his years being the North’s sole mentor. Sansa barely had been able to turn from the temptations of liquor when she watched two pairs of children that she was responsible for die. The listless eyes and questionable vices were all things shared by most mentors. Not Margaery though. She was different. Her kindness to Sansa had been unfailing and she was a survivor through and through.

But victors are always hung up with something or another. It is then, just as fitting, that they are hung up with each other.

Their little secret was theirs and theirs alone whenever they met in sponsor functions, sharing civil smiles and polite greetings at best. Margaery did not catch her eye even once during the event and across several tables, Sansa watched the Tribute Parade commence, a grim expression on her face.

“You should smile more, sweet girl.” Margaery murmured after they wrestled against each other’s kisses that night. The lines had long since blurred and there were only a few things here and there that Margaery could still teach Sansa. And yet, Sansa would still knock on the door each night and Margaery would still let her in. “You would not get those sponsors otherwise.”

Sansa never killed anyone in the arena but she may as well be as culpable as to the deaths that followed after. Sponsors funded her survival in the caves. People in the Crownlands liked pretty things like her and would pay to see her last longer, even when the penultimate would be the just as attractive Joffrey disfiguring her like he promised he would. Lyanna Mormont was not as pretty as Sansa, nor was as skilled as Jorah was. The victors from The Reach were nowhere as comely as Margaery too but they survived simply because Margaery was.

Sansa’s beauty becomes a weapon she never thought she would wield and she watches the wealthy men and women unravel beneath her. One suggestive remark as she falls into bed with one lordling after another leads to Lyanna having something to eat in the arena. The Hunger Games only end when you are dead. Sansa is willing to play it for as long as she could.

“I’m a slow learner.” She whispers, as she pins Margaery on the door of her rooms. Sansa gives her the practiced smile that she has since mastered. Something flits into Margaery’s big, brown eyes. It looks like sadness. Sansa does not understand so she only crashes their lips together. “But I learn.”

She has learned that she can like what her clients do to her sometimes. She has learned that she likes seeing them vulnerable beneath her. Most importantly, she has learned that she likes how no one else but Margaery can set her heart she thought had died, aflutter.

“You would have liked it in Highgarden.” Margaery says, intertwining their fingers as they bask into each other. There is tenderness in which Margaery regards Sansa and for a moment, the woman who has besmirched the Capital with her crooked smile and pretty words look every bit like the mischievous, little girl this cruel world denied her from being. “I can let your little, feisty girl win the Games now, only if you promise that you would join the Victory Tour.”

Sansa chuckles darkly and wonders how no one realized that one’s happiness comes to the expense of another’s.

….

…

But Margaery had as much control of the games as Sansa does.

Lyanna Mormont’s skull is crushed by the huge tribute from the Vale and The North loses their one last hope of not starving this year. There had been a lot of blood and the coverage did not stop until the unearthly sounds of bone cracking was heard all throughout Westeros. Sansa comes to Margaery the night Lyanna dies, face stained with tears and desperate, and Margaery lets her in.

“I guess there are no more chances for me to ever go to Highgarden.” Is all that Sansa manages to choke out as Margaery lets her lean on her shoulders. “It was a stupid dream anyway.”

They touch like they usually do. They kiss like they usually do. Margaery tastes salt on Sansa’s face but mercifully does not say anything. Sansa may have lost everything, from her entire family to a young girl who does not even like her. But she still has Margaery and for now, she realizes, that is enough.

They always stay together until morning comes, wrapped in each other’s arms in a way that they never let themselves to be with their clients. Sansa looks at Margaery, the satisfied flush on her cheeks and the half smile that is only reserved for Sansa and somehow, despite the emptiness she feels, Sansa sees hope.

“Did you really mean that?” Margaery murmurs, once more drawing little circles in her body. Her lips are swollen, her hair mussed but she looks the most beautiful when she is rid of the Capital makeup, a sight only Sansa is permitted to see.

“Mean what?”

“That there is no one left that you love.”

She thinks of Margaery then as she stares at her, the words they never tell anyone else, the things they do with each other that they don’t do with anyone else. Margaery is different and her presence changed everything.

“No.” She finally says, cupping her lover’s cheek. “I think I have one more.”


End file.
